


Recklessness and Water

by MoragMacPherson



Series: You Won't See Nothing Like Me [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Supernatural, Torchwood
Genre: Humor, M/M, Superwho, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-07
Updated: 2010-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-11 13:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/113131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoragMacPherson/pseuds/MoragMacPherson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein Jack Harkness finds out if angels fear to tread water.  While naked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Recklessness and Water

**Author's Note:**

> It's a bit obvious, but this vignette was very much inspired by the R.E.M. classic, _Nightswimming_, which is indeed the intended background music for this story.

Castiel and Jack don't talk so much as they argue.  Sometimes fondly, sometimes heatedly, but it's hardly ever just talking; not like it is with Cas and the Doctor, or between Castiel and Dean.  It's their thing.

For instance, tonight: the usual crisis has been averted ahead of schedule and so Castiel and Jack are out swimming.  Or, more accurately, an exuberant and slightly tipsy Jack has found a convenient pool in the midst of the Adirondack mountains, stripped down to nothing, jumped in the lake, and dared Castiel to join him, while Castiel remains fully-clothed, standing on the shore with a confused or possibly irritated expression on his face.  Jack's not sure which it is: as far as he can tell, Castiel only has a couple of facial expressions, so each of them has multiple functions, and it's not always clear to Jack which job is being undertaken.  So he has to guess at what's going on in the angel's head and guessing leads to arguing which inevitably leads to Castiel's annoyed and/or confused expression which leads to more guessing and then more arguing.  Jack finds the whole cycle entertaining as all hell and Castiel must get something out of it, because he keeps sticking around after jobs to do it.  

On this occasion, given his mild state of inebriation, Jack begins with one of his standard opening gambits.  "Are you insecure about your body?"

"Is there something wrong with the appearance of my vessel?"

"No, no, not at all.  But what's with the clothes?"

"They are what James Novak wore."

"Was he an out-of-work accountant?"

"I believe he was in advertising."  Castiel pauses before adding, "On the radio."

Jack raises his eyebrows.  "I'm gonna go with A.M. rather than F.M. on that one.  But do you absolutely need to wear them?"

"I do not need protection from the elements, no.  But it would be conspicuous to wander about unclothed."  Jack's face remains in that infuriating grin he knows screams 'innocence' so loudly that it cannot be mistaken for anything but a devious facade.  Wisely, Castiel changes course and attempts a different line of reasoning, simpler this time.  "Humans wear clothes, so my vessel wears clothes," he says as he takes a seat on a boulder, letting his feet dangle a few inches over the surface of the water.

Jack manages to shrug and tread water at the same time.  "I'm not wearing clothes right now.  And as far as I can tell, I'm the only human here at the moment.  Which means you're conspicuously clothed.  And dry."

Castiel's eyes narrow.  "Why are you so determined to make me do this?"

Jack smirks.  "Why are you so determined not to?"  Castiel doesn't respond to the question and Jack's tone softens, backs off, unwilling to let the game end so early.  "How old are you, Cas?"

"Very."

"Oh, come on, no need to play shy with me.  Hell, I'm more than two thousand years old now, and looking damn fine for it, if I do say so myself."

Castiel does not deny this, much to Jack's pleasure, but instead says, "I spend much of my time in planes of existence where time flows at a different rate than it does here."

"So give me a ball-park estimate then."

Castiel cocks his head to the side, calculating.  "I am approximately three billion, four hundred seventy eight million, one hundred six thousand, five hundred and twelve years old," he replies after a brief pause.

Jack doesn't blink.  "And in all of that time, have you ever gone skinny dipping?"

Castiel stares right back.  "No."

"You're so missing out," sing-songs Jack, flopping over to do a backstroke.  "There's nothing quite like the feeling of the water over your skin, floating along with nothing but darkness below and stars above, almost like flying, while everything you have is laid bare but still hidden.  It's liberating and soothing and just a little bit naughty."

Castiel exhales in almost a laugh.  "You're only being a little bit naughty?"

Jack puts his feet back on the ground and raises his hands with his palms facing up.  "Yeah, well, the night is still young."  In the moonlight Jack can tell that his fingers are starting to wrinkle and he's starting to feel the chill of the water and the night air, so he's about to give up and dry off when Castiel disappears from sight and reappears almost instantaneously a few feet to Jack's left.   "Whoa!" yelps Jack as he flails back a few feet, splashing his companion, who lifts an arm to shield his eyes from the spray.  The water comes up high on the angel's chest, but the bare arm and curves of his shoulders are more of Castiel's skin than Jack's yet seen.  A quick glance towards shore reveals that Castiel's clothing is neatly folded on top of the boulder he'd been sitting on earlier.  Jack turns back to Castiel whose lips are curled ever so slightly upwards.  "You could give a man a little warning," snaps Jack as he splashes Castiel again, this time intentionally, both to hide his shock and his disappointment that Castiel skipped the stripping phase of skinny dipping.

"I was indulging in a moment of naughtiness," says Castiel, practically smirking before he falls into a backstroke, his motions so smooth and graceful that he doesn't make a single splash while his limbs break through the surface of the lake.  He glides through the lake without displacing a drop.  Jack stares at him, jaw agape, struck dumb by tangible evidence that Castiel is indeed un-human, un-earthly, un-bound by physical laws like surface tension that even freaks like Jack must still comply with.  The teleporting's one thing - Jack grew up around transmat beams - but this?  Dolphins don't swim like this, gumblejacks don't swim like this: nothing swims like this.  Castiel is gliding towards Jack again and Jack remembers to shut his gob before the angel slows to a still float a couple feet away from him.  "You are right.  It's peaceful, like this.  Comfortable, not really like flying at all.  Flying involves much more exertion," states Castiel, looking up at the sky and for once Jack has to resist an urge to touch him that isn't prurient at all.

But Jack is no blushing schoolgirl or altar boy and it's with his own natural ease that he lets his legs float up so that he too can watch the stars.  "Told you so," he replies, and Castiel's toes are poking out of the water.  His toe nails are long due for a trim.  Jack brushes over them with his fingertips.  "Now that you're learning to appreciate simple human pleasures, let me tell you all about the joys of pedicures."


End file.
